Notable Quotes

The Fight for Honest Monetary Weights and Measures (Honest Money) is not a new fight. It was fought, and won, several times in the last century. In particular, ordinary people have always supported honest monetary weights and measures and always opposed fiat money, a.k.a. paper money. Set forth below are some quotations from some more famous personalities who expressed thoughts on the money issue. Also included are some revealing quotations from official publications, such as those published by the Federal Reserve.

"With the monetary system we have now, the careful saving of a lifetime can be wiped out in the blink of an eye."

Larry Parks, Founder and Executive Director, FAME

“You have to choose [as a voter] between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the Government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the Capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold.”

“I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816

"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money."

Daniel Webster

"The decrease in purchasing power incurred by holders of money due to inflation imparts gains to the issuers of money--."++

St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, Review, Nov. 1975, p.22

"Because of 'fractional' reserve system, banks, as a whole, can expand our money supply several times, by making loans and investments."++

Federal Reserve Bank, New York, The Story of Banks, p.5.

"Without the confidence factor, many believe a paper money system is liable to collapse eventually."++

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Gold, p. 10

"Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU."++

Federal reserve Bank of New York, I Bet You Thought, p.19

"The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. As noted earlier, demand liabilities of commercial banks are money."++

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Modern Money Mechanics, p.3

"Emitting bills of credit, or the creation of money by private corporations, is what is expressly forbidden by Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution."++

U.S. Supreme Court, Craig v. Missouri, 4 Peters 410.

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."++

James A. Garfield

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."++

Frederic Bastiat, The Law

"Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess."++

Irving Fisher, 100% Money

"If, however, a government refrains from regulations and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer."

John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 240

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalistic System was to debauch the currency. . Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose."

John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff

"Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing."++

Ralph M. Hawtrey, former Secretary of Treasury, England

"Money is the most important subject intellectual persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it is widely understood and its defects remedied very soon."++

"Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with a flick of a pen they will create enough to buy it back."++

Sir Josiah Stamp, former President, Bank of England

"Those who create and issue money and credit direct the policies of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people."++

Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of Exchequer, England

"All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation."++

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes."++

Wm. Jennings Bryan

"Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice."++

George Washington, in letter to J. Bowen, Rhode Island, Jan. 9, 1787

"No state shall emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, coin money---."++

Article One, Section Ten, United States Constitution

"Madison, agreeing with the journal of the convention, records that the grant of power to emit bills of credit was refused by a majority of more than four to one. The evidence is perfect; no power to emit paper money was granted to the legislature of the United States."++

George Bancroft, A Plea for the Constitution (1886)

"A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interest, combined in one mass; and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks."

John C. Calhoun, Speech 5/27/1836

"You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out."

"Where would we be if we had I.O.U.'s scrip and certificates floating all around the country?" Instead he decided to "issue currency against the sound assets of the banks. [As opposed to issuing currency against gold.] The Federal Reserve Act lets us print all we'll need. And it won't frighten the people. It won't look like stage money. It'll be money that looks like real money." [Emphasis added.] (Source: 'Closed for the Holiday: The Bank Holiday of 1933', p20 - Federal Reserve Bank of Boston)

Treasury Secretary Woodin, 3/7/33

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, where it went - 1975, p15

“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, where it went - 1975, p29

"Is there any reason why the American people should be taxed to guarantee the debts of banks, any more than they should be taxed to guarantee the debts of other institutions, including merchants, the industries, and the mills of the country?"

Senator Carter Glass, Author of the Banking Act of 1933

"As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law."

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."

John Adams

“With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.”